Chapter 5 - An Affair Of State

Miss Penelope Morse was perfectly well aware that the taxicab in
which she left the Carlton Hotel was closely followed by two
others. Through the tube which she found by her side, she altered
her first instructions to the driver, and told him to proceed as
fast as possible to Harrod's Stores. Then, raising the flap at
the rear of the cab, she watched the progress of the chase. Along
Pall Mall the taxi in which she was seated gained considerably,
but in the Park and along the Bird Cage Walk both the other
taxies, risking the police regulations, drew almost alongside.
Once past Hyde Park Corner, however, her cab again drew ahead,
and when she was deposited in front of Harrod's Stores, her
pursuers were out of sight. She paid the driver quickly, a little
over double his fare.

"If any one asks you questions," she said, "say that you had
instructions to wait here for me. Go on to the rank for a quarter
of an hour. Then you can drive away."

"You won't be coming back, then, miss?" the man asked.

"I shall not," she answered, "but I want those men who are
following me to think that I am. They may as well lose a little
time for their rudeness."

The chauffeur touched his hat and obeyed his instructions. Miss
Penelope Morse plunged into the mazes of the Stores with the air
of one to whom the place is familiar. She did not pause, however,
at any of the counters. In something less than two minutes she
had left it again by a back entrance, stepped into another
taxicab which was just setting down a passenger, and was well on
her way back towards Pall Mall. Her ruse appeared to have been
perfectly successful. At any rate, she saw nothing more of the
occupants of the two taxicabs.

She stopped in front of one of the big clubs and, scribbling a
line on her card, gave it to the door keeper.

"Will you find out if this gentleman is in?" she said. "If he is,
will you kindly ask him to step out and speak to me?"

She returned to the cab and waited. In less than five minutes a
tall, broad-shouldered young man, clean-shaven, and moving like
an athlete, came briskly down the steps. He carried a soft hat in
his hand, and directly he spoke his transatlantic origin was
apparent.

"Penelope!" he exclaimed. "Why, what on earth--"

"My dear Dicky," she interrupted, laughing at his expression,
"you need not look so displeased with me. Of course, I know that
I ought not to have come and sent a message into your club. I
will admit at once that it was very forward of me. Perhaps when I
have told you why I did so, you won't look so shocked."

"I'm glad to see you, anyway," he declared. "There's no bad news,
I hope?"

"Nothing that concerns us particularly," she answered. "I simply
want to have a little talk with you. Come in here with me,
please, at once. We can ride for a short distance anywhere."

"But I am just in the middle of a rubber of bridge," he objected.

"It can't be helped," she declared. "To tell you the truth, the
matter I want to talk to you about is of more importance than any
game of cards. Don't be foolish, Dicky. You have your hat in your
hand. Step in here by my side at once."

He looked a little bewildered, but he obeyed her, as most people
did when she was in earnest. She gave the driver an address
somewhere in the city. As soon as they were off, she turned
towards him.

"Dicky," she said, "do you read the newspapers?"

"Well, I can't say that I do regularly," he answered. "I read the
New York Herald, but these London journals are a bit difficult,
aren't they? One has to dig the news out,--sort of treasure-hunt
all the time."

"You have read this murder case, at any rate," she asked, "about
the man who was killed in a special train between Liverpool and
London?"

"Of course," he answered, with a sudden awakening of interest.
"What about it?"

"A good deal," she answered slowly. "In the first place, the man
who was murdered--Mr. Hamilton Fynes--comes from the village
where I was brought up in Massachusetts, and I know more about
him, I dare say, than any one else in this country. What I know
isn't very much, perhaps, but it's interesting. I was to have
lunched with him at the Carlton today; in fact, I went there
expecting to do so, for I am like you--I scarcely ever look
inside these English newspapers. Well, I went to the Carlton and
waited and he did not come. At last I went into the office and
asked whether he had arrived. Directly I mentioned his name, it
was as though I had thrown a bomb shell into the place. The clerk
called me on one side, took me into a private office, and showed
me a newspaper. As soon as I had read the account, I was
interviewed by an inspector from Scotland Yard. Ever since then I
have been followed about by reporters."

The young man whistled softly.

"Say, Penelope!" he exclaimed. "Who was this fellow, anyhow, and
what were you doing lunching with him?"

"That doesn't matter," she answered. "You don't tell me all your
secrets, Mr. Dicky Vanderpole, and it isn't necessary for me to
tell you all mine, even if we are both foreigners in a strange
country. The poor fellow isn't going to lunch with any one else
in this world. I suppose you are thinking what an indiscreet
person I am, as usual?"

The young man considered the matter for a moment.

"No," he said; "I didn't understand that he was the sort of
person you would have been likely to have taken lunch with. But
that isn't my affair. Have you seen the second edition?"

The girl shook her head.

"Haven't I told you that I never read the papers? I only saw what
they showed me in at the Carlton."

"The Press Association have cabled to America, but no one seems
to be able to make out exactly who the fellow is. His letter to
the captain of the steamer was from the chairman of the company,
and his introduction to the manager of the London and North
Western Railway Company was from the greatest railway man in the
world. Mr. Hamilton Fynes must have been a person who had a
pretty considerable pull over there. Curiously enough, though,
only the name of the man was mentioned in them; nothing about his
business, or what he was doing over on this side. He was simply
alluded to as Mr. Hamilton Fynes--the gentleman bearing this
communication.' I expect, after all, that you know more about him
than any one."

She shook her head.

"What I know," she said, "or at least most of it, I am going to
tell you. A few years ago he was a clerk in a Government office
in Washington. He was steady in those days, and was supposed to
have a head. He used to write me occasionally. One day he turned
up in London quite unexpectedly. He said that he had come on
business, and whatever his business was, it took him to St.
Petersburg and Berlin, and then back to Berlin again. I saw quite
a good deal of him that trip."

"The dickens you did!" he muttered.

Miss Penelope Morse laughed softly.

"Come, Dicky," she said, "don't pretend to be jealous. You're an
outrageous flirt, I know, but you and I are never likely to get
sentimental about one another."

"Naturally," she answered, "or I shouldn't be here. Do you want
to hear anything more about Mr. Hamilton Fynes?"

"Of course I do," he declared.

"Well, be quiet, then, and don't interrupt," she said. "I knew
London well and he didn't. That is why, as I told you before, we
saw quite a great deal of one another. He was always very
reticent about his affairs, and especially about the business
which had taken him on the Continent. Just before he left,
however, he gave me--well, a hint."

"What was it?" the young man asked eagerly.

She hesitated.

"He didn't put it into so many words," she said, "and I am not
sure, even now, that I ought to tell you, Dicky. Still, you are a
fellow countryman and a budding diplomatist. I suppose if I can
give you a lift I ought to."

The taxi was on the Embankment now, and they sped along for some
time in silence. Mr. Richard Vanderpole was more than a little
puzzled.

"Of course, Penelope," he said, "I don't expect you to tell me
anything which you feel that you oughtn't to. There is one thing,
however, which I must ask you."

She nodded.

"Well?"

"I should like to know what the mischief my being in the
diplomatic service has to do with it?"

"If I explained that," she answered, "I should be telling you
everything I haven't quite made up my mind to do that yet."

"Tell me this?" he asked. "Would that hint which he dropped when
he was here last help you to solve the mystery of his murder?"

"It might," she admitted.

"Then I think," he said, "apart from any other reason, you ought
to tell somebody. The police at present don't seem to have the
ghost of a clue."

"They are not likely to find one," she answered, "unless I help
them."

"Say, Penelope," he exclaimed, "you are not in earnest?"

"I am," she assured him. "It is exactly as I say. I believe I am
one of the few people who could put the police upon the right
track."

"Is there any reason why you shouldn't?" he asked.

"That's just what I can't make up my mind about," she told him.
"However, I have brought you out with me expecting to hear
something, and I am going to tell you this. That last time he
came to England--the time he went to St. Petersburg and twice to
Berlin--he came on government business."

The young man looked, for a moment, incredulous.

"Are you sure of that, Pen?" he asked. "It doesn't sound like our
people, you know, does it?"

"I am quite sure," she declared confidently. "You are a very
youthful diplomat, Dicky, but even you have probably heard of
governments who employ private messengers to carry despatches
which for various reasons they don't care to put through their
embassies."

"Why, that's so, of course, over on this side," he agreed. "These
European nations are up to all manner of tricks. But I tell you
frankly, Pen, I never heard of anything of the sort being done
from Washington."

"Perhaps not," she answered composedly. "You see, things have
developed with us during the last twenty-five years. The old
America had only one foreign policy, and that was to hold
inviolate the Monroe doctrine. European or Asiatic complications
scarcely even interested her. Those times have passed, Dicky.
Cuba and the Philippines were the start of other things. We are
being drawn into the maelstrom. In another ten years we shall be
there, whether we want to be or not."

The young man was deeply interested.

"Well," he admitted, "there's a good deal in what you say,
Penelope. You talk about it all as though you were a diplomat
yourself."

"Perhaps I am," she answered calmly. "A stray young woman like
myself must have something to occupy her thoughts, you know."

He laughed.

"That's not bad," he asserted, "for a girl whom the New York
Herald declared, a few weeks ago, to be one of the most brilliant
young women in English society."

She shrugged her shoulders scornfully.

"That's just the sort of thing the New York Herald would say,"
she remarked. "You see, I have to get a reputation for being
smart and saying bright things, or nobody would ask me anywhere.
Penniless American young women are not too popular over here."

"I'll see about it when you're grown up," she answered. Just at
present, I think we'd better return to the subject of Hamilton
Fynes."

Mr. Richard Vanderpole sighed, but seemed not disinclined to
follow her suggestion.

"Harvey is a silent man, as you know," he said thoughtfully, "and
he keeps everything of importance to himself. At the same time
these little matters get about in the shop, of course, and I have
never heard of any despatches being brought across from
Washington except in the usual way. Presuming that you are
right," he added after a moment's pause, "and that this fellow
Hamilton Fynes really had something for us, that would account
for his being able to get off the boat and securing his special
train so easily. No one can imagine where he got the pull."

"It accounts, also," Penelope remarked, "for his murder!"

Her companion started.

"You haven't any idea--" he began.

"Nothing so definite as an idea," she interrupted. "I am not
going so far as to say that. I simply know that when a man is
practically the secret agent of his government, and is probably
carrying despatches of an important nature, that an accident such
as he has met with, in a country which is greatly interested in
the contents of those despatches, is a somewhat serious thing."

The young man nodded.

"Say," he admitted "you're dead right. The Pacific cruise, and
our relations with Japan, seem to have rubbed our friends over
here altogether the wrong way. We have irritations enough already
to smooth over, without anything of this sort on the carpet."

"I am going to tell you now," she continued, leaning a little
towards him, "the real reason why I fetched you out of the club
this afternoon and have brought you for this little expedition.
The last time I lunched with Mr. Hamilton Fynes was just after
his return from Berlin. He intrusted me then with a very
important mission. He gave me a letter to deliver to Mr. Blaine
Harvey."

"But I don't understand!" he protested. "Why should he give you
the letter when he was in London himself?"

"I asked him that question myself, naturally," she answered. "He
told me that it was an understood thing that when he was over
here on business he was not even to cross the threshold of the
Embassy, or hold any direct communication with any person
connected with it. Everything had to be done through a third
party, and generally in duplicate. There was another man, for
instance, who had a copy of the same letter, but I never came
across him or even knew his name."

"Gee whiz!" the young man exclaimed. "You're telling me things,
and no mistake! Why this fellow Fynes made a secret service
messenger of you!"

Penelope nodded.

"It was all very simple," she said. "The first Mrs. Harvey, who
was alive then, was my greatest friend, and I was in and out of
the place all the time. Now, perhaps, you can understand the
significance of that marconigram from Hamilton Fynes asking me to
lunch with him at the Carlton today."